For the -nth Skyrim-related thread, let me ask you this...

[Canadish]

One of the Streams I was watching (one with an Bearded Orc in a Chef hat) had him take about 10 hours to finish the main quest.

Pretty good length by my reckoning (considering all the other quest lines there are).

I noticed alot of the textures are really low res and ugly, but it looks stunning at certain points in the game (Steam Punk, Jellyfish powered, Dwemer Dungeons were by far the best.)

Can't wait to play, rolling a Paladin type of character and I'm becoming a damn Werewolf.
Doctor Jackle/Mr Hyde style gameplay, here I come.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I've been facing the other way the entire time and will continue to even after it is released.

Oblivion was a roach motel of bugs with an alarmingly generic doomsday plot, terrible AI and shamelessly copy-pasted exterior and dungeons.

I see no fucking reason why Skyrim will be any different. Bethesda really is a dead ringer for Peter Molyneux, if Yahtzee's fervent hatred of the latter man is anything to go by, in that they diligently ignore big gamebreaking bugs and hype the irrelevant features or features that aren't even THERE.

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

I saw something about a cool new little bit in the game that is not supposed to be public knowledge yet that looks super cool.

My only worries with the game are:

1)I really hope it's well written as writing and dialogue tends to be hit or miss with Bethesda

2)Melee Combat looks stiff and awkward (Thank god I play a Archery and Daggers for stealth kills type of character, so that will barely affect me)

3)I hope the game world is at least as big as Oblivion`s, if not bigger. As of right now I don`t believe the`ve said how big Skyrim is gonna be.

As far as I remember, I think they've said it will be as big as Oblivion only with a bigger scale and more detailed environments, so while I will not be bigger than Oblivion, it will feel bigger is pretty much what they've said.

No I have no link but I vividly remember what they said.

This then asks the question, do the Oblivion gates add to the size of the game world? Is it as big as Oblivion + gates or Oblivion without gates?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I've been facing the other way the entire time and will continue to even after it is released.

Oblivion was a roach motel of bugs with an alarmingly generic doomsday plot, terrible AI and shamelessly copy-pasted exterior and dungeons.

I see no fucking reason why Skyrim will be any different. Bethesda really is a dead ringer for Peter Molyneux, if Yahtzee's fervent hatred of the latter man is anything to go by, in that they diligently ignore big gamebreaking bugs and hype the irrelevant features or features that aren't even THERE.

I can respect that point of view, but you have to remember Beth works on a scale that trumps BioWare or CDProjekt. If I had to contend with fifty square miles of real estate, a few hundred NPCs, several hundred quests, procedurally generated quests AND the required modular aspect for community-created mods as a producer, then I'd wholly expect my release to be bumpy. Considering this, I'll forgive Bethesda for not releasing a sanitized product, as I have the assurance that:

a) a patch is on the way
b) the fans will correct any lasting omissions

Besides, some of the most celebrated games in modern history had fairly horrendous problems at launch. Neverwinter Nights 2 received pretty good reviews, and was the object of at least ten or twelve patches from Obsidian. Riven, which was one of the most anticipated adventure games for its time, came complete with a pixel-hunting bug that made it impossible to make contact with the Moeity, past the Whark Gallows.

I'd say your comparison to Molyneux is a little harsh. Peter Molyneux is a man who has virtually no understanding of the principles of modern game design, as all he does is shit out a concept and expect the boys at Lionhead to flesh it out, no matter the cost. He's the Steve Jobs of gaming. On the other hand, interviews, previews and released behind-the-scenes content for Oblivion suggested that Bethesda had a clear objective in mind, and weren't simply tossing features on a whiteboard like monkeys flinging poo.

You might not have appreciated your time with Oblivion, which is fine by me, but did you apply the released patches? Did you use the unofficial patches? Did you peruse the Oblivion Nexus in search of fixes for whatever lasting issues bugged you?

You might expect games to work out of the box, but considering today's economy and releasing schedules, I don't. Not anymore, not when you have fresh installs for console games coming complete with a twenty-minute download to correct the slew of bugs remaining on what's essentially a glorified beta.

 

[Sarpedon]

I've purposely avoided the official information and leaks and what not, I want the game to be a complete surprise.

Now that we're actually getting closer to release, I wish I'd done that, but I didn't. I snatched up every tasty morsel of info I could find.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

*ka-snip*

This is what I take offense to. If developers are so fucking incompetent that they leave it up to the PLAYERS to fix the games for them (Valve doesn't count), something has gone horribly wrong somewhere. It's essentially fraud because we're purchasing faulty products. I shouldn't have to download a dozen fanpatches just to make a triple-A game work, because they're supposed to have the budget and manpower to debug it before release. There is simply no excuse for this new practice. I can already name a couple games that were unplayable upon release, which was Dead Island, Red Orchestra 2, Magicka (an indie example that's just totally incredible for still being unplayable to this day) and whatever other future games that will be released.

What I'm asking is what happened to quality control?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

*ka-snip*

Snippers McSnippington the Third

Supply and demand happened. Hype, player expectations, bigger budgets and bigger projects happened. We're just not in the days where a team of ten or twelve guys could lovingly craft an engine, bake some polygons like a nice old grandma baking apple pie, and generally give their babies all the care and attention in the world. That approach to game development is all but moribund nowadays and subsists only with a handful of indie developers.

And why doesn't Valve count? Don't forget, Team Fortress 2 is almost always available as a beta version if you so choose, which allows you to participate in the bug-hunting process when new features are implemented. You're putting up with a potentially broken version of the game in full agreement when you do this, and you're telling that other devs get no pass?

I'm afraid your expectations are, sadly, far too high. Obsidian caught the ball after New Vegas' originally bumbling release, and I've heard some friends call it better than Fallout 3. Better quality control and overall QA is only possible if the studio is given time, money and resources to do so. Nowadays, past a certain point, if you're not *done* with QA, it's your damned loss and the game ships. End of story.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Original post was finally shat out by the server, please disregard this.